To an approximate scale of 1:12

.Sub. eclesia. S. urbanj. (‘Below the church of Sant’Urbano’); [measurements]

• c.1513/14
  Datable to c.1513/14

Pen and brown ink and grey-brown wash over stylus lines and compass pricks

Bernardo della Volpaia

The architrave seen here is the first of four on the sheet that were presumably grouped together because of their high level of ornamentation. The church referred to in the caption must be that of Sant’Urbano a Campo Carleo (later Sant’Urbano ai Pantani), which was rebuilt in 1600 (Hülsen 1927, p. 501) and demolished in the 1930s. It stood on the Via Alessandrina very close to the church of Santa Maria in Campo Carleo, known colloquially as the Spoglia Cristi, at the south-eastern corner of the Forum of Trajan (see Viscogliosi 2000, pp. 87–93), close to where a fragment of the forum’s perimeter still survived (see Cat. Fol. 51v/Ashby 88 Drawing 2).

The drawing principally shows the entablature’s architrave, which has three fascias each accompanied by a row of bead-and-reel decoration and a cyma reversa above with Lesbian ornamentation. It also includes the uncompleted face of a frieze up above, which suggests that the original intention was to record the entire entablature, which would have just fitted onto the page (cf. Fol. 57r/Ashby 97 showing a similarly abandoned entablature with just the architrave and frieze drawn). An architrave depicted in Giuliano da Sangallo’s Codex Barberini, which is labelled as coming from near the ‘Spoglia Cristi’, is of similar composition although the decoration is not shown. A cornice labelled ‘Spoglia Cristi’ belonging either to the same or to a similar entablature appears on another Coner page (Fol. 51v/Ashby 88 Drawing 2). The full entablature of the then-surviving remnant of Trajan’s Forum is recorded in drawings by Giuliano da Sangallo, Giovanni Battista da Sangallo and ‘Pseudo-Cronaca’.

OTHER IMAGES MENTIONED: [Giuliano da Sangallo] Rome, BAV, Barb. lat. 4424 (Codex Barberini), fol. 38v (Hülsen 1910, p. 55; Borsi 1985, p. 200); [Giuliano da Sangallo] Siena, BCS, Ms. S.IV.8 (Taccuino Senese), fol. 35v (Borsi 1985, p. 301); [Giovanni Battista da Sangallo] Florence, GDSU, 1665 Av (Bartoli 1914–22, 6, pp. 99–100; Frommel–Adams 1994, pp. 262–63); [‘Pseudo-Cronaca’] Florence, BNC, II. I. 429, fols 50r–v

OTHER DRAWINGS IN CODEX CONER OF SAME SUBJECT: Fol. 51v/Ashby 88

Ashby 1904, p. 55
Census, ID 45496

Drawing

Digitisation of the Codex Coner has been made possible through the generosity of the Census of Antique Works of Art and Architecture Known in the Renaissance, Berlin

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